Obama supports Anti-Semitic Palestinian Agenda of Jew-Free State

Posted on October 2, 2014 by First.One.Through

US President Obama again made his opinion clear that he supports Acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’ calls for creating a Jew-free country.

President Obama told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October 2014, that the US is against both Jews building new homes and against Jews moving into existing homes in areas that Abbas wants to keep Jew-free.

The Obama administration comments were in response to two events: planned construction of 2600 new homes in Givat Hamatos and six Jewish families moving into homes they purchased in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Both neighborhoods are in the eastern part of Jerusalem.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said “The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” Note this Obama condemnation was not about building a new town in a remote region of the West Bank; this was about Jews buying and moving into existing houses in Jerusalem. The reason? Because it makes the Arabs angry.

Abbas has been on record that he doesn’t want any Jewish presence in a future Palestinian country. He wants Israel to keep Jews out of potential Palestinian land now so he won’t have to evict them or pay them compensation to leave later (similar to the compensation he expects Israel to pay to Arabs who left property in 1948). In July 2013, Abbas said “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands.”

Blatantly anti-Semitic statements from Palestinian leadership which call for banning Jews from the region is not new. In the Arab riots of 1936-9, Arabs effectively convinced the British to limit Jewish immigration to only 75,000 over the 1940-5 years, at the end of which time, Jews would be banned from moving to the country altogether. The Arabs and British took this action during the Holocaust in Europe, aiding in the murder of thousands of innocents who could have found refuge in their homeland, which the League of Nations had mandated 17 years earlier to be “national home for the Jewish people”. While the Jews were being killed in Europe, hundreds of thousands of Arabs from around the Middle East moved into Palestine.

Liberals could perhaps try to forgive Obama’s ignorance regarding Jews in the region – maybe he doesn’t know that:

Jews have consistently been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s- 100 years before the 1967 war;
Jews were always allowed to live throughout the land- including under the Ottomans for 500 years and then under the British Mandate;
Yemenite Jews were the original settlers of Silwan, back in 1882;
The League of Nations Palestine Mandate (1922) specifically stated that no one should be barred from living in the land due to religion: Article 15: “No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief”;
The Palestinians and Jordanians started both the 1948 and 1967 wars which gave Israel half (in 1948) and then all of Jerusalem;
The Palestinians and Jordanians evicted all of the Jews from the eastern half of the city in 1949, barred the Jews from visiting the holy sites and are attempting to recreate that Jew-free environment in that part of the city today;
Jerusalem was never intended to be Jew-free or a Palestinian city according to the 1947 UN Partition Plan;
Israel already gave the Palestinians half of the “Holy Basin” when it gave control of Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority;
In the more macro story:
- Jews have lived in Jerusalem for over 3000 years – 1600 years before Islam brought the Arabs to Jerusalem;
- Jerusalem is the holiest city for only one religion – Judaism;
- Only one people – Jews – ever made Jerusalem its capital in its 4000 year history;
- The identity of Israel is Jerusalem; it is the only country to have a national anthem ABOUT its capital

Beyond a willful ignorance of the long and deep history of the Jews in all of Jerusalem, how could the first African-American president of the United States advocate creating Jew-free zones, knowing first-hand about racism? Would Obama stand for a housing policy that barred blacks from living in Washington, DC?

How can the US support the Arabs’ racist suggestion that would bar Jews from living in Jerusalem?

Sources:

Obama criticizing Netanyahu on new Jerusalem homes: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-02/obama-netanyahu-talks-clouded-as-u-s-slams-settlements.html

http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-ties-in-crisis-over-east-jerusalem-building-plans/

Obama criticizing Jews living in Silwan: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-ties-in-crisis-over-east-jerusalem-building-plans/

Abbas on Jew-free Palestine: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/07/30/abbas-arabs-in-israel-no-jews-in-palestine-peace-process/

1922 League of Nations Mandate: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp

1939 White Paper: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp

Yeminite Jews in Silwan: http://www.meforum.org/3281/silwan

The Banners of Jihad

Posted on September 29, 2014 by First.One.Through

Jihad is a war that Muslims fight against non-Muslims. It is considered a holy crusade that each Muslim must take according to the Quran.

There are different ways that jihad can be waged. According to the Quran and Hadith, it can be fought with the heart, the tongue, the hand, or the sword.

The nature of the battle changes according to place and enemy. A non-believer who lives as a dhimmi – a second-class citizen in an Islamic country – is fought with the heart, not violence. Countries or people that do no accept dhimmi status, that live in or influence lands that are considered to be “Muslim lands” are combated with force.

In modern times, the banners of jihad first appeared on the battlefields. It spread to Muslim countries and then to the center of western cities. It can now be found on college campuses. There are already news reports that it is arriving in smaller communities – perhaps like your neighborhood.

The banners will be different, depending on the makeup of your town and country. But make no mistake, the jihad is the same.

Sources:

Jihad definition: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jihad

FirstOneThrough on the global/local nature of Jihad: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/pick-your-jihad-pick-your-infidel/

Pick Your Jihad; Choose Your Infidel

Posted on September 28, 2014 by First.One.Through

The rise of Islamic extremism is not new. It is not a surprise. The mission of jihadists has been clearly broadcast for years – the destruction and annihilation of non-Muslim people and non-Islamic countries by Muslims and replacing them with Islamic states:

HAMAS

The Hamas Charter was drafted in 1988. It mentions the word “jihad” 11 times in the charter. Its enemy is spelled out clearly: Jews.

“In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews,
we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad.”

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it”

Jew/s/ish is mentioned 12 times in its charter. “Zion/ism/ist” is mentioned 20 times.

Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinian people in 2006 to carry out a war against the Jews and to destroy Israel. The attacks against Israel in the summer of 2014 that continue to this day are a consistent part of its mission.

Hamas jihadist

AL QAEDA

Al Qaeda did not suddenly appear on 9/11/2001. In 1998, it stated its goal of killing all Americans:

“we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military —
is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it
in any country in which it is possible to do it”

Al Qaeda has not backed down on its pledge while the US has enlisted the world support to defeat the group.

BOKO HARAM

The kidnapping of over 200 Christian girls in Nigeria in April 2014 shocked the world. Boko Haram made no secret of its targeted enemy a few years earlier: Christians.

“The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies
and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state
and its security apparatus as well as churches
until we achieve our goal of
establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state.”

The world tweeted its support to bring back the girls and has provided support to find the attackers.

Many extremist groups continue to operate around the MENA region: Al-Shabaab, ISIS and Khorasan are only a few. Their aims are clear. Their path is jihad. Only the name of the infidel changes based on where the jihadists operate.

What is the world reaction to each of these extremist groups? Is the global community clear in its response?

A few years ago, the United Nations established an anti-terrorism unit. Its directive has noble goals for combating terrorism such as stopping the flow of funds and people to these groups. However, the committee has not been clear about who the terrorists are, as it only mentions Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as terrorist groups. These other jihadists could thereby escape sanctions.

Jihad is Jihad. Terrorism is Terrorism. The world must unite to stop it. The goal must be clear and unequivocal.

The Jihadists are.

Sources:

Hamas Charter 1988: http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397

Al Qaeda 1998 fatwa: http://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm

Boko Haram 2012: http://www.osundefender.org/?p=32210

Boko Haram kidnapping girls: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/09/26/first_kidnapped_chibok_girl_released_by_boko_haram_still_traumatized.html

Al Shabaab: http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/al_shabaab.html

ISIS February 2014: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26366197

Khorasan: http://www.stripes.com/news/khorasan-a-little-known-extremist-group-targeted-in-us-strikes-in-syria-1.304523

UN terrorism agency: http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/presskit/2013_PressKit_EN_v3.pdf

FirstOneThrough on NY Times preference for Hamas: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/the-new-york-times-wants-the-military-to-defeat-terrorists-but-not-hamas/

Palestinian antiemetism, Holocaust denial and call for jihad: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/what-do-you-recognize-in-the-palestinians/

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

Posted on September 24, 2014 by First.One.Through

The Fleeing Refugees

There is a mass migration occurring in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). People are fleeing their home countries due to turmoil and are crossing land and sea to escape to more stable societies.

Fleeing Syria: Over 3 million people have poured into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt;
Fleeing Libya: 100,000 have crossed the Mediterranean towards Italy and southern Europe;
Fleeing Iraq: Iraq is now hosting people fleeing Syria, while simultaneously, watching thousands of its own citizens flee from ISIS

The new host countries are attempting to find solutions for the flood of new people, many which do not speak the language and lack professional skills. The United Nations is working to assist these countries handle the millions of new people who need shelter, food, clothing and education for an indeterminate amount of time.

The UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is currently staffed with 8600 people handling 34 million refugees from 125 countries. The number of refugees continues to swell each day and hundreds of others die before they even reach safety. In 2014 alone, an estimated 2900 refugees died in transit. In 2014, UNHCR estimates that it will assist over 41 million people. Its biennial budget is $5.3 billion.

The Swell and Permanence of UNRWA

Meanwhile, the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, has continued to stretch its “temporary” existence for 66 years. This distinct refugee agency for Palestinians manages virtually no refugees anymore, but instead handles services for 5.4 million children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of people who left Palestine in 1948.

The UNRWA staff stands at 30,000, or 3.5 times the staff that the rest of the world gets for actual refugees. It services only 13% of the people that UNHCR assists.

Unlike the refugees serviced by UNHCR, the Palestinians speak the language and have skills. The UNRWA infrastructure and systems have been established for decades. Yet, the UNRWA biennial budget is over $2 billion, or $370 per person serviced compared to $130 for each UNHCR refugee who needs real and immediate services and infrastructure such as shelters, medical facilities and schools.

Almost every UNRWA worker is a Palestinian. The few Europeans that occupy the senior positions and act as the face of the organization mask the reality that the organization is simply an employment agency for Palestinians that runs schools and medical facilities in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. As UNRWA writes: “Staff costs constitute the bulk of UNRWA’s budget. This is because the day to day direct delivery of services requires a large number of staff (some 29,000). Efforts to maintain parity with host authorities’ public sector salaries render the Agency’s financial sustainability susceptible to economic volatility”. (In other words, when Jordan gives its public sector unions a 5% raise, the entire world gives the Palestinian UNRWA workers a raise too.)

UNRWA continues to extend its life and grow its mission. Per the UNRWA documents, the agency “has evolved over time in response to developments in the operational context, extends at present to providing education; health; relief and social services; microfinance and emergency assistance to refugees; infrastructure and camp improvement within refugee camps; and protection.”

The mission of the agency, in short, is no longer to have temporary workers in temporary hospitals assist a defined number of people for a temporary period of time. It has become a conduit for the global community to pay generations of Palestinians to care for themselves. As Queen Rania of Jordan put it elegantly “UNRWA is a way of living.”

UNRWA Office just south of the Temple Mount

The Abuse of UNRWA

UNRWA’s evolving mission has distanced itself from core relief operations (as offered by the UNHCR) and the tone and tenor of the organization has come to mimic Palestinian society at large. For example, UNRWA has come under repeated fire for its actions related to Jews and Israel.

Its textbooks teach anti-Israel propaganda;
The schools in Gaza do not teach about the Holocaust which is part of the curricula in every UN school in the world;
Its teachers have been caught building bombs for Palestinian terrorist groups.

During Operation Protective Edge, UNRWA schools extended the meaning of their new mission of “protection”.

UNRWA housed Hamas missiles in its schools;
It handed those missiles to Hamas while it was in active combat;
It watched as Hamas fired rockets into Israeli civilian areas from its courtyards.

Long ago, UNRWA stopped being an independent relief agency, but has morphed into a Palestinian agency with its own agenda, courtesy of funding by the global community.

Ending UNRWA

The Palestinians and the global community have been co-conspirators in a permanent welfare situation for over six decades. Meanwhile, there is a true humanitarian crisis around the MENA region which is underfunded and understaffed. It is time to transition to a new paradigm for each area in which UNRWA operates.

Lebanon and Jordan: Each country has been over-run with actual refugees from Syria and Iraq. These refugees sit in squalor and receive a fraction of the aid that the Palestinian permanent residents receive. It is unfair and outrageous. The UNRWA should hand over all of its operations to the host countries of Lebanon and Jordan. The incremental cost of carrying these facilities should be carried by each country, with a UN contribution made at the country-level which declines over time. At the same time, additional monies should go towards infrastructure for the new actual refugees.

Syria: As the country is still engaged in a civil war, the UN should still maintain operations until hostilities end.

West Bank and Gaza: If the UN truly considers Palestine a country, by definition there can be no Palestinian refugees or SAPs (Stateless Arabs from Palestine) in Palestine. And whether it is or isn’t, all UNRWA facilities should be handed over to the government. The UN will likely give monies to the government as part of establishing and stabilizing the country, which would help cover the cost of the former UNRWA facilities.

The world’s focus on the descendants of Palestinians who left their homes 66 years ago has hurt millions of refugees from around the world. In today’s particularly violent and unstable situation in dozens of countries, the United Nations must transition from spending billions of dollars in welfare checks to capable young SAPs, and direct funds to the millions who are fleeing their home countries due to war and violence.

Sources:

Dying in transit: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/17/how-smugglers-bring-desperate-migrants-across-the-mediterranean-only-for-thousands-to-die-at-sea/

Syria refugee count: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php

Libya refugees: http://www.voanews.com/content/thousands-of-refugees-coming-on-boats-from-libya-italian-navy/1960126.html

UNHCR staffing: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c2.html

UNHCR budget: http://www.unhcr.org/523ab6bd9.html

UNRWA: http://www.unrwa.org/resources

UNRWA budget and mission: http://www.unhcr.org/523ab6bd9.html

Queen Rania on UNRWA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N1mfw4PKg4

Missiles in UNRWA schools: http://www.timesofisrael.com/rockets-found-in-unrwa-school-for-third-time/

Blessing Islamophobia

Posted on September 22, 2014 by First.One.Through

The New York Times gave a warm and strong endorsement for Islamophobia this weekend. It’s opinion pages wrote strongly about the importance of free speech and the logic of exploring the hatred that many people feel towards all Muslims around the world, whether due to the 9/11 terror attacks or the beheadings of innocents today.

The New York Times editorial said it was “entirely correct” for people to express why they want to kill Muslims. It added that people “should not yield to critics” who want to use political correctness to suppress their anger.

The Times is on record – again – defending those who want to broadcast their rationale for killing any follower of Islam. Free speech “gives voice to all sides” including racists.

The paper remains standing “properly firm in defending… the principle of artistic freedom in a world rife with political pressures.” A surprising wake-up from a paper that people often view as erring more towards political correctness than towards the right of free speech.

In case you don’t believe the quotes and sentiments of the current NY Times editorial board, the links to the two editorials are below. The one (small) item worth noting, is that the paper actually wrote about killing Jews, not Muslims. But in balancing free speech and political correctness, I have made an assumption that the Times isn’t going to limit free speech just to anti-Semites. Was that a bad assumption?

Sources:

NY Times editorial September 20 “The Met Opera Stands Firm”: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/the-death-of-klinghoffer-must-go-on.html

NY Times editorial June 19: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/opinion/the-metropolitan-operas-backward-move.html

FirstOneThrough on Klinghoffer Opera: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/eyal-gilad-naftali-klinghoffer-the-new-blood-libel/

It’s the Democracy, Stupid

Posted on September 4, 2014 by First.One.Through

Skipping the Hamas Party ignores the Eight Year Palestinian War

Many pro-Israel people (myself included) have complained over the past several months that mainstream media’s coverage of Hamas neglected to refer to the group as “terrorists”, as the group is so labeled by: the United States; Canada; European Union; Japan; Israel; and Egypt. I believe that we have missed a more basic flaw in describing Hamas, namely that it is the majority democratically-elected party of the Palestinians.

In January, 2006, the Palestinian Authority held its last democratic elections. The Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza voted overwhelming for Hamas. The group secured 76 of 132 seats in the government, or 58% of the Palestinian Authority. By way of comparison:

In the United States (2012), the Democratic Party won 54% of the seats in the Senate;
In the United Kingdom (2010), the winning Conservative Party won 36% of the seats in the parliament; and
In Australia (2013), a coalition of four parties including the Liberal and Liberal National Party secured 53% of the seats

Hamas is the popular, mainstream political party that the Palestinians chose by an enormous margin (58% in a multi-party parliamentary system is a landslide; second place Fatah won 33% of the seats). When the Palestinians placed their votes, they all understood that Hamas was rabidly anti-Semitic, sought the murder of Jews and complete destruction of Israel, as it described clearly in its 1988 Charter and in repeated statements by its leadership. Further, Palestinians voted for this party knowing not just of Hamas’s positions, but of the world’s policy of isolating Hamas.

The media has not only ignored this, but has deliberately concealed this fact. Look at the adjectives used for Hamas: it is described as “Islamist” not “Palestinian”; it is described as a “faction”, not a “political party”; the group is described as having “seized” Gaza and does not convey that the people freely voted for the terrorist group.

New York Times: “Hamas, the Islamist faction that dominates the Gaza Strip.”
CNN: “Hamas, the militant Islamic group that runs Gaza,”
The Guardian: “Islamist organisation,”
Newsweek: “Hamas Islamist-dominated Gaza Strip”
Reuters: “Hamas, Gaza’s dominant Islamist group,”

Through the media’s – and world bodies’ – obfuscation of the Palestinian people’s complicity in the current situation, it dangerously absolves the Palestinians of responsibility. Palestinians have been artistically separated from their democratically-elected leaders who are carrying out the exact campaign promises that the Palestinian voters enthusiastically endorsed.

A reader of the photoshop-ed news is therefore led to conclude that Hamas is similar to ISIS in Iraq or Boko Haram in Nigeria or other declared terrorist groups. However, those groups are indeed “factions” and “Islamist organizations” that are apart from their respective governments. They were not elected by the people. In the West Bank and Gaza Hamas is the government and represents the Palestinians’ desires, irrespective of world leaders and the media pretending that acting-President Mahmoud Abbas (whose term expired way back in 2009) is an elected leader.

To further underscore the point, a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in August 2014 found that 61% of Palestinians would vote for Hamas. The breakdown was 53% for the terrorist party in Gaza and 66% in the West Bank.

The Palestinian people chose a path of war and continue to support an armed conflict today. They actively elected a group dedicated to jihad and the rejection of any and all negotiations with Israel in 2006, and back that same political terrorist party today.

By ignoring the role of the democratic process and the stated desires of the Palestinian people, the past eight years have been mischaracterized as a having three Israeli-Gaza wars, instead of an eight year Palestinian-Israeli war, in which Israel has responded with three defensive operations.

Or, more accurately based on the latest Palestinian poll, eight years and counting…

Source:

Hamas election 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600372.html

Hamas August 2014 poll: http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Hamas-Haniyeh-would-trounce-Abbas-if-elections-held-today-Palestinian-poll-says-374296

US Senate 2012: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2012

UK election 2010: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010

Australia election 2013: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2013

Hamas Charter: http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-conflict.html?_r=0

CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/11/world/meast/mideast-crisis/

The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/hamas-real-chance-gaza-agreement-israel-truce

Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/israel-warns-hamas-harsh-strikes-265100

Reuters: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/uk-mideast-gaza-hamas-talks-idUKKBN0GG0FJ20140816

Wall Street Journal: “The third major military clash between Israel and Hamas in less than six years” http://online.wsj.com/articles/israel-hamas-talks-over-gaza-deadlocked-1407920730

The Death of Civilians; the Three Shades of Sorrow

Posted on September 2, 2014 by First.One.Through

Every life is precious.

For many people, every life form is considered sacred, whether human or animal. In the United States alone there are an estimated 7 million people who restrict their diets to fruits and vegetables.

The vast majority of people around the world are not vegetarians. Still, there are limits to what they would consider eating. Domestic animals like dogs and cats are considered taboo in many cultures, and almost all 7 billion people on the planet avoid cannibalism. Even to those that do not consider eating meat to be immoral, there are limits.

The concept of the preciousness of life and limits of behavior extends beyond eating habits. Most of Europe has abolished the use of capital punishment. The European Union considers the death penalty to be “cruel and inhuman”, even for heinous crimes.

However, 40+ countries still use capital punishment for a variety of offenses. Each society decides the limits of acceptable and extreme behavior. Even among countries that use capital punishment, the nature of the crime makes people assess the level of innocence of the person, the objection to the use of the death penalty, and sympathy for the accused. People may feel more upset when they hear about a homosexual who harmed no one, being stoned to death (in Mauritania, for example), than a mass murderer being executed (in the USA). There is a perceived range of innocence and guilt, and therefore associated gradations of grief.

This is true even among civilians who are killed during wartime. Some innocents are viewed as more “pure” than others and their unfortunate demise warrants more despair. Below are three categories of civilians from most to least innocent: Innocents; Targets; and Enablers.

The Innocent
A. Bystanders: In battles, passers-by may be attacked and killed without cause. These people have no part in the conflict and may not even be aware that one was taking place. An example would be the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines flight 17 that was shot over the border of Ukraine and Russia in July 2014. The 298 bystanders were killed without reason- the people had no role in the war. One can imagine that even the people that carried out the attack did it by mistake and regretted the action.B. Children: Children are innocent by definition: they lack knowledge and ability; they have no control of their situation; they neither vote nor fight. Still, almost every war has witnessed children killed. In the War between Gaza and Israel in the summer of 2014, hundreds of children were killed as the fighting took place in heavily populated areas.

C. Slaughtered Citizens: Citizens of a country have every reason, right and expectation that their own government protects them. That protection is the primary basis for any government to exist. When a government reverses that course and turns its protective weaponry inwards to target its own population, it is a slaughter of innocents. Consider the millions of German Jews in the 1930s and 1940s who had every right to expect their government to protect them. When the Nazis specifically targeted these citizens, the Jews were left completely helpless. It was not a civil war of a division seeking independence; it was a slaughter of the defenseless by its own army.

2. The Targets

D. Initial Civilian Targets: Some civilians are attacked because of the actions of their government. The people going to work on September 11, 2001 in the USA were not military targets and were not part of the government. The attackers specifically targeted their places of work – America’s financial and military centers – as they were unhappy with America’s influence and presence in the Muslim world. The nearly 3,000 civilians were just going to work and had no role in, or understanding of the unhappiness of the attackers.

E. Civilians Targeted after Military Attack: The victims in Hiroshima and Nagaski were living in Japan when the US dropped an atomic bomb on them during the end of World War II in 1945. The Japanese initiated the war by attacking US military targets in Pearl Harbor four years earlier. As the war dragged on, the US concluded that it would end the war faster by obliterating entire cities which included both people involved in the war and uninvolved civilians who were part of the aggressor force. World reaction to the attack has been mixed, whether the action saved more lives by ending the war faster.

F. Civilians Targeted after Civilian Attack: The allies in WWII launched a bombing campaign on the German city of Dresden in February 1945. The Dresden attack was a reaction to the German-initiated war and attack on Great Britain. The further argument given to destroying the entire city was that it was an important center for the German war effort. An estimated 25,000 people were killed in the British and US bombing campaign.

The Enablers
G. Backers of War Policy: Civilians are defined as people who are not part of the armed forces. However, there are people who are technically not part of the armed forces but are directly involved in advancing a war. For example, Palestinians voted overwhelmingly for Hamas and its war campaign against Israel in 2006. Hamas has fought constantly against Israel and Israel has responded with three operations: in 2008 (Operation Cast Lead); 2012 (Operation Pillar of Defense); and 2014 (Operation Protective Edge). Many civilians (both those that voted for the war policy and those that didn’t) were killed in those wars.

The loss of any life is sad, but it is human nature to react to the particular circumstance of each death. In an extreme example, an 8-year old killed while riding a bicycle brings more sympathy than a convicted murderer getting the death penalty. As detailed in the article above, it is not surprising that even in the finer shades of gray among civilians killed during war, that people feel more horror for the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, than for Palestinians who voted for war.

Sources:

http://costsofwar.org/article/civilians-killed-and-wounded

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

EU human rights: http://eeas.europa.eu/human_rights/adp/index_en.htm

Death penalties worldwide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country#Capital_punishment_in_the_world_.28by_country_not_by_population.29

Hamas victory: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600372.html

Death sentence for homosexuality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aXPECeOilA

Save the Children

Posted on August 31, 2014 by First.One.Through

I first came upon the “Save the Children” organization when I saw that they sponsored an appeal to raise money for Gaza in a poster in the London Underground. The name of the group sounded so innocent and well-meaning. Who is more innocent than a child? Who could possibly be against helping children? Can helping children ever be considered a biased agenda?

Save the Children sponsored poster on Gaza,
London August 2014

Some days later, I came across a retail thrift store bearing the STC name in Bath, England. Posters in the store window contained two new appeals to help rebuild Gaza and to stop the “Israeli” War in Gaza. There was no appeal or comment to stop the Palestinian war against Israel. I decided to look into the group on their own website.

The President & CEO of STC, Carolyn Miles, posted a blog called “Gaza’s Miracle Tomatoes” on July 8, a day after Israel launched Operation Protective Edge to stop the bombardment of Palestinian missiles into Israel. It was her first ever (and currently only) post about Israel or Gaza.

In the column she describes the “bleak landscape” and “dusty barren patches” of Gaza. The scene contained “donkeys pulling carts filled with rubble and surrounded by men and boys along harsh, rocky earth”.

The blog continued that 20 minutes away from the bleak picture along the border with Israel, a “miracle” appeared from nowhere: “a lush green field …a simple greenhouse …row after row of beautiful tomatoes … the result of a recently-concluded project by Save the Children and other partners and funded by USAID.” This oasis painted by Miles intentionally gave a reader the specific impression that STC helped create a miracle from nothing in the terrible Gaza landscape. It contained three significant lies of omission:

Gaza had a flourishing greenhouse business built by the Israelis for years. The Israelis cultivated 1,125 acres and built hundreds of greenhouses in Gaza while there in the 1990s up until they left in 2005. The business generated roughly $75 million of revenue.
Jewish donors bought and donated the greenhouses to the Palestinians. World Bank president James Wolfensohn, Mort Zuckerman and several others paid the Israelis $14 million for two-thirds of the greenhouse equipment to donate them to the Palestinians (some Israelis opted to not take the payment and take their equipment with them to re-start businesses back in Israel).
The Palestinians looted and destroyed the greenhouses. Soon after the expulsion of Jews from Gaza, Palestinian looters stripped the greenhouses of the irrigation pumps, computer monitors and greenhouse sheeting, leaving over one-fourth of the greenhouses bare. The businesses withered.

The STC piece continued: “we drove through the streets of Gaza and heard from residents about the impact of border crossing restrictions on children there—the rising rates of malnutrition and resulting stunting, the lack of basic medicines and care when children became sick, and the severe circumstances disabled children were in.” The article had now moved past being the miracle machine and placed blame for the situation on Israel (for border crossing restrictions), and continued with outright lies:

The children of Gaza have better health statistics than almost all Arabs in the Middle East. According to the United Nations, UNICEF and UNRWA, Palestinians in Gaza have the highest immunization rates and longest life expectancy of surrounding Arab and Muslim countries (including: Turkey; Jordan; Egypt and Iran). They have the highest literacy rate.However, the facts don’t add to the Save the Children’s non-miracle.

Save The Children claims it does not choose sides, it just chooses children, but is that factual? Is the characterization that the children of Gaza suffer because of the actions of Israel – as opposed to the actions of their parents – really not taking sides? Is a minute and one-half video featured on the STC site that only shows bombings in Gaza (and nothing in Israel), not choosing sides? Has STC helped fund a single bomb shelter just a few miles away, in the targeted playgrounds of Israel?

A bigger question for Save the Children – and the world – is how do you protect children from their own parents?

Sources:

Save the Children president blog on Gaza: http://loggingcarolynmiles.savethechildren.org/?_ga=1.229256220.1625656554.1409305814

STC YouTube video on Israel-Gaza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISvA-rmhv4A

Jews donating the greenhouses to Palestinians: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/nyregion/18donate.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1409478973-DrXHog3bg5xC5HsRaqHwTg

Palestinians ransacking the greenhouses in 2005: http://www.haaretz.com/news/palestinian-militants-ransack-former-gush-katif-greenhouses-1.179788

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1025/p04s01-wome.html

FirstOneThrough on England’s Gaza Obsession: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/no-disappearing-in-the-land-of-blind/

UNICEF immunization: http://www.childinfo.org/files/immunization_summary_en.pdf

CIA life expectancy at birth: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

New York Times Talking Turkey

Posted on August 11, 2014 by First.One.Through

Sometimes a contrast in coverage helps boldface the biases.

The New York Times (for some reason) wrote quite glowingly of Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey during presidential elections in August 2014. Some of the choice language on August 9 before the election included:

“hoping to secure a legacy greater than that of the revered founder of modern Turkey”;
“broken down secular taboos”;
“economic policies have improved the lives of many”;
“long been a strategic ally of the United States”;
“In 2011, President Obama developed a close personal relationship with Mr. Erdogan, seeing Turkey as a model to emulate for countries upended by revolution’”

After the elections, on August 11 the Times continued to use positive expressions: “thousands massed…and erupted in applause” to Erdogan’s victory, while caveating later in the article that there were some concerns among the country’s “liberals” about an “authoritarian” streak in Erdogan.

In both articles, the New York Times neglected to remind readers of a few policies of Erdogan over the prior year that gave Turkish citizens pause about Erdogan:

But if the New York Times likes you, certain facts will fade to the background.

Consider the surprisingly low-turnout for this first-time Turkish presidential election: only 74% came out to vote compared to 87% in 2011 general elections. The NYT said that few people showed up to vote “presumably because many had assumed Erdogan would win”. Erdogan squeaked out a win with 52% of the vote compared to the second place winner at 38% – only 37% higher. However, the NYT said “the election felt like a coronation”.

By way of comparison, look at the way the Times covered the election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2013. The Times did not include any of the commentary used for Turkey about Israel: being a strong US ally; the strong economy of Israel; the island of stability in the sea of chaos of the Middle East. Instead, the headline read: “Tepid Vote for Netanyahu in Israel Is Seen as Rebuke”. In that “tepid vote”, Israelis came out in numbers greater than ever before – 67% voted for the cabinet, compared to the 2009 election turnout of 65% and of 63% in the 2003 election. Not only was the vote not “tepid”, but Netanyahu’s Likud party won the vast majority with 31 seats compared to the second place winner, Yesh Atid, with 19 votes – a margin of 63% (almost twice Erdogan’s clearance).

But the Times despises Netanyahu. The article had remarkable quotes for the victorious Prime Minister:

“weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”;
“the outcome was a humbling rebuke”;
“Mr. Netanyahu posted a panicky message on Facebook”;
“The results were a blow to the prime minister, whose aggressive push to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has led to international condemnation and strained relations with Washington.”

This last quote is a particularly embarrassing and revealing lie. Jodi Roduren (who wrote the piece from the fantasy of her head instead of based on facts) sought to lay out a scenario where the Israeli public disagreed with the “aggressive push to expand Jewish settlements”. In the real world, both the number two party, Yesh Atid (19 seats) and the number four party, Jewish Home (11 seats), were in favor of a united Jerusalem and continuing to build homes for Jews in Judea & Samaria. The Jewish Home party campaigned on the basis of annexing Judea & Samaria. The Times’ favorite parties, the left-wing parties of Hatnua and Meretz came in almost last place with 6 seats each. (If you’re counting at home, that’s 61 seats versus 12 seats for the parties that want to keep united Jerusalem- a margin so large and bold you would think Roduren’s handlers could have managed to edit her “news” article).

The Times ignored reality in both situations. In Turkey, it failed to report on Erdogan’s strong right-ward shift into deep Islamic camp and painted him as more of a moderate. His modest win as blown out of proportion.

For Israel, Netanyahu’s strong win was considered poor. The country’s support of his policies about the rights for Jews to live all parts of Judea and Samaria were not just dismissed, but painted in a way that was completely opposite of the facts.

I sometimes think of the Times the way I think about turkey: it tastes quite good but it puts a person to sleep. Oh, and of course, it is one of the dumbest animals on the planet.

Sources:

Turkey, most journalist jailed 2012 and 2013: http://cpj.org/reports/2013/12/second-worst-year-on-record-for-jailed-journalists.php

Erdogan banned twitter May 2013: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/21/turkey-bans-twitter-and-twitter-explodes/

Erdogan blocked Youtube: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/europe/turkey-youtube-blocked/

Turkey ban kissing in public; late sale alcohol: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22780773

Netanyahu headline “Tepid Vote for Netanyahu in Israel Is Seen as Rebuke”: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/middleeast/israel-votes-in-election-likely-to-retain-netanyahu.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Lapid, Yesh Atid: Jerusalem not for negotiation http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Lapid-Jerusalem-is-not-up-for-negotiation-because-the-city-will-never-be-divided-330680

“Please Sir, May I have Some More?”

Posted on August 8, 2014 by First.One.Through

As the 2014 Operation Protective Edge (hopefully) draws to a close, one can expect the same histrionics that have become well-known and well-worn to emanate from the Arab world. The video below of Queen Rania of Jordan, is of her appeal to the United Nations five years ago, which can serve as the outline for the Arab textbook on UNRWA. In summation, we are pathetic and we want to ask the world for money again.

(As further background/amusement, Queen Rania of JORDAN was born in KUWAIT and considers herself Palestinian, when convenient).

“Life half-lived” – Palestinian Quality of Life. The Arabs will bemoan their treatment by Israel and ignore their treatment by their Arab brethren.

Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria are denied citizenship by their host countries. They are denied the ability to own property and obtain white color jobs. The Jordanians gave Palestinians citizenship in 1954, only to revoke it in 1988. Egypt has totally shut down Hamas which runs Gaza, as it is a part of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

The reason why Palestinians have a bad quality of life (beyond the discrimination from their Arab “brothers”) is because of UNRWA. UNRWA has given millions of second and third generation Arabs a life “half-lived” because of a promise that they will get to go to a house that no longer exists, in a country that their grandparents sought to destroy at its infancy. The Arabs in Israel have twice the life of Palestinians in Arab countries.

Regardless, all protests about quality of life will be directed at Israel, and not at UNRWA, Lebanon, Syria or Egypt.

“Hours wasted at checkpoints” – Border control. The Palestinians will complain about the restrictions of movement out of Gaza and the West Bank. The fact that those territories have amassed over 10,000 rockets, have a charter calling for the death of Jews and destruction of Israel, have fired over 10,000 rockets at Israeli towns over the past 13 years, and killed hundreds of Israeli civilians does not seem to factor into their concern about Israel’s need for border controls.

Regardless, Arab nations will press Israel to alleviate travel restrictions.

“UNRWA has delivered sanctuary.” – Charge of War Crimes. The vast majority of UNRWA employees are Palestinians. These employees were caught not only storing missiles in their schools, but handing them over to Hamas to launch against Israel. Those same members of Hamas launched missiles in and around the UNRWA schools. UNRWA teachers have been caught building rockets for Hamas.

Regardless, the histrionics of Israel firing at the missile launching sites will continue.

“Reconstruction”. – Appeal for Money to Gaza. The historic blame for the limited re-building homes and schools in Gaza was laid squarely on Israel’s restriction on allowing building materials into Gaza. As Operation Protective Edge made clear, the fault was not the lack of cement in Gaza, but which projects the Palestinians sought to develop. Hamas used the materials to build terror tunnels instead of schools and roads above ground.

Regardless, the Arabs will argue for the ease of more materials into Gaza without oversight.

“School provides a comforting routine.” The schools in Gaza may fly an UNRWA flag, but the curricula are determined by the ruling authority – Hamas. The Hamas education is complete with demonization of Jews and Holocaust denial.

Regardless, Palestinians will demand a rebuilding of schools under the Hamas watch.

“Hell on Earth”. Queen Rania described Gaza as “Hell on Earth” for many years. She used this statement even though people in Gaza had: longer life expectancy; better immunization rates and higher literacy rates than Jordanians.

“If we let UNRWA collapse… we risk destabilizing the entire region.” Queen Rania should hand back her prophesy credentials. The Arab and Muslim world is in total chaos in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and other places, with no connection to Israel or UNRWA. UNRWA itself is a destabilizing force to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in its current configuration.

Regardless, the Arabs will shout that the organization should not be overhauled.

“All of us depend on UNRWA.” The appeal that the world needs UNRWA will continue even though it is blatantly false. It is a cheap attempt to get the world to continue to fund salaries for 30,000 Palestinians.

The amazing hypocrisy, is that the Arab world funds only 10% of the UNRWA budget, while they are the ones who claim it is necessary.

Regardless, Palestinians will once again have their hands out asking the world for more money.